Little Shadow
by SunEyedGirl
Summary: Lucas Scott's book deal is falling to pieces before it's even really begun. And it's all because of one girl – one infuriatingly stubborn, intensely introverted, green-eyed girl – who refused to co-operate when everyone around him was only saying yes. And now Lucas has to choose between his ambition and the love of his life. LP.
1. Memories & Dust

**A/N: This story started through the question of: what if Peyton never wanted Lucas to release his first novel? Everything up until the end of season 4 is the same, apart from LP scenes about Lucas' novel, which I'll elaborate on in a flashback in a few chapters' time.**

**Just a warning from the outset, I'm not very confident with writing LP cuteness and fluff (working on it though!), and this story is quite angsty and emotional. While it's definitely a LP story, they probably won't be brought together for at least five or six chapters, and even then there's a lot of issues to work through. So if you can't wait until then for a LP reunion, this might not be the story for you!**

**As for my other story, I'm so sorry about the lack of updates, I'm just feeling a bit at a crossroads with that one. I'm not sure where to take the story and needed a break. Hopefully some inspiration will hit me soon.**

**Title of this story is taken from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs song, and the title of this chapter is a song by Josh Pyke. Hope you enjoy reading it, and I'd love to hear what you think.**

* * *

**-**  
LOS ANGELES, CA – Peyton Sawyer, the Southern girl who singlehandedly captured all of America's hearts in Lucas Scott's surprise bestseller autobiography, _An Unkindness of Ravens_, has finally been located and identified.

After its release in June and immediate blitz to the top of every bestseller list in the country, Scott's book – full of tawdry storylines and astounding twists, but independently verified as shockingly all true – left readers with one burning question: Where is the real Peyton Sawyer?

Sawyer, 20, who in Scott's book charmed the protagonist with her enigmatic-yet-lovable attitude and remarkable ability to overcome even the most devastating tragedies with grace, has eluded the public eye for weeks despite frenzied media speculation over her whereabouts.

While Scott, also 20, and his fellow characters and real-life friends, including New York fashion designer Brooke Davis, current All-American basketball player at the University of Maryland, Nathan Scott, and his wife, singer-songwriter Haley James Scott, have been only too happy to reveal their association with the book, Sawyer has long shunned the spotlight.

Insiders working on the book have similarly remained tight-lipped on Sawyer's precise location.

"I know where she is, and she's happy and living her life quietly, so I just wish you, [the press], would all leave her alone," Lucas said of Sawyer at a media conference only last week.

"She never wanted to be a part of this, and I strongly ask once again that you respect her privacy."

When asked about Sawyer's whereabouts, Brooke Davis also refused to speculate.

"As the book makes clear, Peyton is an incredible, wonderful person, but she's also intensely private, and I would never betray my friend. She's happy, I hear she's really busy at work, and she just wants to be left alone. Unfortunately so far she hasn't been given the privacy she deserves. Just let her live her life in peace," she said on _The Ellen Degeneres Show_ on Monday.

"I don't think any of us were expecting this huge amount of public interest in our lives, and it's definitely taken a little getting used to."

Penned as star-crossed lovers in Scott's epic tale of romance, Scott ended his novel on an optimistic note, with he and Sawyer in love and happily starting their lives together after graduating high school. He gave no other indication in the epilogue as to whether their relationship had lasted beyond the book's publication. However, with Sawyer suspiciously absent from Scott's side during press conferences and book signings, and Scott pointblank refusing to publicly comment on their relationship, the release of the novel has been plagued with overwhelming public speculation and gossip as to whether the relationship survived its grueling translation into novel form.

Sorry, fans, but today this newspaper can exclusively reveal the answer to be a resounding 'No'.

Sawyer, our sources can reveal, is not living in domestic bliss in their hometown of Tree Hill, North Carolina, as the ending of _Ravens_ might have you believe.

In reality, she is working as an intern at high-end record label, Sire Records, and living across the country from Lucas, in none other than Los Angeles itself.

After a confidential tip-off, reporters waiting outside Sire yesterday sighted a woman matching Sawyer's description exiting the building at 9.36pm.

She immediately shielded her face from photographers, jumped into her car and drove away.

Subsequent comparisons to old photos and a number-plate match confirm the woman's identity as Sawyer.

An inside source at Sire tells us Sawyer's exact job description is a junior intern in the publishing and distribution department, and she has been working there for almost two years.

This strongly supports Scott's portrayal of Sawyer as an enthusiastic promoter of music.

Meanwhile, Scott, who still lives in North Carolina, has deferred his junior year at UNC to depart on a nationwide book tour in September. His novel remains on the New York Times non-fiction bestseller list for the fifth week running, and is rumoured to be the next to make it onto Oprah's Book Club List.

Fans – generally of the screaming, teenage and female variety – have taken to lining the streets outside already packed book signings in North Carolina, desperate for a glimpse of the novel's movie-star handsome author or one of his similarly good-looking co-characters.

And with her brooding disposition, golden locks and intense personality, the character of Peyton Sawyer is an undeniable – albeit reluctant – fan favourite.

"Of course, we are thrilled with the novel's success," Lindsey Strauss, Junior Editor at publisher Putnam & Pratt said yesterday, when asked about the novel's overnight blockbuster status.

"It is very rare to find a young writer with such honest soul and wit, along with a universal story to tell. We remain inspired by Lucas Scott and every one of his friends and family who have made the novel what it is today."

As for the aloof Peyton Sawyer, this website has made it our mission to strive to keep readers updated as to when, if ever, she finally steps into the spotlight.

Scott's upcoming book tour itinerary has him scheduled for a signing in L.A. in late September, and you can bet this reporter will be on the lookout for any sign of a Sawyer-Scott reunion. And wouldn't that be a happy ending?

But don't hold your breath, folks. Sorry, kids, but fame is a cruel mistress, especially for love-struck teenagers. We hate to be the bearers of bad news, but perhaps it's better to stick with the fairytale. Some love stories are just too good to be true.  
**-**

* * *

A single, true fact that had taken Peyton Sawyer two years and a bestselling novel to come to terms with: Los Angeles, California, is full of incredibly beautiful people.

Crammed to the brim, even, with the genetically blessed and artificially enhanced: with the fashionable or the edgy; with the classic or the audacious.

And the absurd amount of beauty that this city could hold wasn't exactly inspiring on a girl's self-confidence.

Peyton could walk down Sunset Boulevard and see young actresses bumping shoulders. She could go into any club on a Saturday night and watch reality TV stars gyrate to the beat. It was all too natural to be caught up in the hype; so easy to be intimidated by this sheer quantity of splendour.

And for most pretty girls Peyton knew, having to compete with this constant saturation of attractiveness was undoubtedly crushingly devastating. Take Brooke, for instance. Brooke and Peyton had spent the whole summer after Senior Year in Los Angeles together, visiting the beach at Malibu, flirting with shirtless college guys playing volleyball and generally enjoying being young and pretty in an unfamiliar city.

But after three tiring months, Brooke had gotten precisely nowhere by batting her eyelashes or (her own personal secret) altering her bikini surreptitiously so it turned more and more skimpy by the day.

When finally her swimsuit was nothing more than two ruined strips of spandex, Brooke was forced to admit that being the most attractive girl at Tree Hill High School (in her opinion, anyway) meant absolutely nothing in California, where the girls were sun-kissed, slender, and looked, well, exactly like her. Rather than one pretty girl in a thousand, as she was accustomed to, Brooke Davis was now one of thousands of pretty girls, and that didn't quite work for her.

So under the guise of starting her label from the largest base possible, Brooke up and moved from the beating sun of Los Angeles back to the more edgier look on the East Cost, to New York City, and Peyton, feeling bemused, slightly lost, and younger than she had ever felt before, was left alone in sunny California for the first time.

* * *

Despite a group of admittedly improbably good-looking high-school friends, Peyton at first also found it incredibly difficult to deal with the levels of superficiality she saw on the West Coast.

In Tree Hill, the largest amount of glamour she had seen were the mountains of hairspray and Brooke's caked-on makeup while cheering at basketball games every Friday.

But here – here it was hard enough to order a coffee without practically resting your cleavage on the counter and beckoning to the adolescent waiter with bedroom eyes. Here, Peyton had taken to wearing 5-inch heels every time she went to a bar not because she liked the way she looked in them – she couldn't care less – but simply so she could see something other than people's shoulders all night. Here, she knew the easiest way to get let into the label's morning meeting, short of outright begging, was to simply drop a button on her blouse. Just one, and admission granted. Simple – and as degrading – as that.

And so she played the game to begin with. Her first year in L.A., when she was still the Southern Girl from the small town, Peyton tried her very hardest to fit in. And there were some things she soon realised.

She soon found out that being called 'beautiful', as she often was, was not a compliment; but merely an acknowledgment that she was normal; that she fit the mould of everyone else. She knew, which Brooke did not, that being one of the better-looking girls at her old high school in Tree Hill, North Carolina was laughably meaningless in Los Angeles, California.

She knew the best place in North Hollywood to get a cup of coffee and the _only _place that knew how to make a decent tea. She knew how to talk on a mobile phone and dodge traffic simultaneously; how to judge the correct amount of cleavage to show in different situations. She knew the game, and just how to play it.

She knew that nobody in L.A. really looked _at _you, however stunningly beautiful you might be. Sure, people looked in your general direction, but never _at_ you, always at something more interesting; someone more popular, just frustratingly beyond your eyeline.

Her first year in L.A., Peyton found that while she loved the quirks and nuances of the city, she hated those plunging downfalls: the superficiality, the commercialism, the oversaturation, the fact that nobody really _saw_ you for who you really were.

She spoke to Brooke on the phone occasionally, and she tried her best to console her, injecting her warm, liquid words of confidence, of hope. But she wasn't _here. _Nobody was. In fact, Brooke was three thousand miles away, and so her words changed nothing, and Peyton continued to feel more and more invisible.

At one point, it almost had her up and packing. She would go, she thought, back home, back to where she was appreciated. Back to where she was valued, and special, and unique. Maybe she would pull a Brooke, and head to New York City. Peyton was on the verge of quitting her job and giving up her apartment when it happened.

Lucas' novel, _An Unkindness of Ravens,_ was released, that public love letter to her, that ballad of devotion and yearning. And everything – simply everything, all of Peyton's whole world as she had known it – was turned upside down in the single moment it took for a book to be signed, or paid for, or taken off the shelf and flicked through mindlessly; in the brief second it took for a heart, a life and a relationship to be betrayed, all three at once.

* * *

"Peyton!"

She had taken only two steps out of the vestibule at Sire Records when the cameras began to snap. Their sound was deafening, their shutters a million little insects clicking their pincers together menacingly. _Click-click-click. Peyton, Peyton, Peyton. We've come to get you, Peyton._

"Peyton, Peyton Sawyer!"

She shuddered. She was surrounded by insects, too. That's what it felt like. Like she was trying to walk forward, but insects were swarming over her feet, jumping on her face, clinging to her neck. She batted at them distractedly.

"Hey, you! Peyton! Look over here, pretty girl! C'mon!"

She tried to keep her head down, to elude the camera's flashes, but the photographers were quicker. The instant she turned her head, a camera would zoom out of nowhere and click, capturing her face, twisting it into an expression marred by confusion and frustration.

"Hey, baby, let me get a picture of you, doll. Show us your pretty face."

_Let me get to my car_, she wanted to scream. _Just let me go._ But she had promised herself she would keep her mouth closed. She was not going to justify their intrusion with retaliation. She refused to co-operate with their world. She was going to give them nothing to write about.

"Peyton, when's the last time you saw Lucas? When did you last speak to him?"

_Lucas_, she thought. She scoffed inwardly. There were a few video cameras around, too, and the footage of her struggling through a mass of paparazzi was sure to make it online within the hour, and then Lucas would see it and realise once more what she was going through. For some reason, the thought of Lucas seeing her in misery gave her some kind of cruel satisfaction. _You caused this, Lucas_, she thought bitterly. _It's your fault I'm famous. And now you are responsible for my public humiliation, my worldwide exposure._

"Do you miss him, huh, Peyton? Peyton? Do ya?"

And he knew how much she despised cameras, after Derek. How even a single click could send her over the edge. He would immediately understand how much pain she must be in amidst a sea of constant flashes. _Good_, she thought viciously. _Let him see me in pain. Let him feel some remorse for what he has done._ Because she knew the one thing which would most hurt Lucas Scott would be to see her suffer.

"Do you still love him, Peyton? Do you?"

And as hard as she tried to ignore them, as much as she willed herself to keep her head down and her mouth shut, as painful as it was to bite down on her lip and curl her fists to keep her wrists from shaking out of control, after that question, that single, innocent enquiry, all that she saw was black.

"AAARGH!"

The object of the pack of photographers' attention finally whirled around to face them fully, her shoulders thrown back, timid no longer, and the hand formerly shielding Peyton Sawyer's face from the camera flashes flew up at them in an unmistakeably rude finger gesture.

"You can all go fuck yourselves. That's my _comment_ to you. Go print that in your fucking useless paper."

And in the time it took for the photographers to recover and begin buzzing around her once more, speaking louder, even more excited than before, their cameras blinding, victorious in finally getting a full face photograph, Peyton Sawyer managed somehow to squeeze into her car and screech, fuming, her resolve finally broken, down the Los Angeles street.

And although the response she gave to the reporters was loud, and outspoken, and spontaneous, and everything she never intended to portray in front of the media, she wondered later – too late, she realised – why it had never occurred to her, not once, to simply answer _no_ to that photographer's final question. It was so easy to curse and shout and rage, so painless to silently hate Lucas for what he had done to her life, but why was it almost unthinkable to say that she didn't love him?

* * *

Never again would Peyton wish she wasn't invisible. She cursed herself, only weeks ago, for wanting to be noticed in the Los Angeles crowd. What she wouldn't give, now, to go back to that anonymity, to that never-ending _sameness_. Back to what Brooke so bemoaned: being one in a thousand pretty girls.

How she yearned to be able to walk down the street and not have to worry she would be recognised. How she wished she could walk to her work, as she had done every day before, and trail her way leisurely through cafés and flea markets. How she hoped that soon, through some miracle, some work of divine intervention, some other Girl In A Book would come along and enthusiastically steal her place in the spotlight.

* * *

So one day in her kitchen she grabbed a pair of scissors out of a cutlery drawer and cut a blunt fringe into her curly locks. She looked uncertainly at the hair pooling at her feet and promptly lopped off a couple of inches of length for good measure until her hair sat unevenly somewhere around her shoulders. Then, to finish the job, she walked straight to the nearest hairdresser and got her hair dyed almost black at the roots. The tips faded out into an ashy kind of blonde that was somehow completely different from her original glossy golden, despite being only a few shades darker. She developed a constant uniform of shabby combat boots, black jeans and Ray-Bans. It was edgier; grungier; less feminine. Perhaps, Peyton thought, eyeing herself critically in her mirror, it didn't altogether suit her.

But this Peyton, unlike the Peyton from two years ago, didn't care one bit about how she looked. And any change, unflattering or not, which would shake off her previous life, was surely for the best.

After two long years in Los Angeles, Peyton Sawyer had learned many lessons. And the most profound of them all was not about the people or the attitude or the L.A. style. It was a lesson about herself.

She learned that anything at all which reminded her, or anyone else, of her past in Tree Hill, was shameful. She learned the hard way about how to shrink into the shadows and throw off her former identity so cleanly it was as if the old Peyton never existed.

In Los Angeles, people would eventually get over Lucas' book, and get over her. She knew it was only a matter of time. It was the way the throwaway news cycle worked: out of the magazines; out of mind. Even now, two months after the book's release, the paparazzi was slowly getting fewer; the public sightings thankfully on the decline.

But in Tree Hill, North Carolina, she knew she would perpetually be the girl in the book. She knew if she went home, she couldn't go anywhere without getting stared at and talked about. In L.A., soon enough she would be refreshingly faceless again: a nobody; a has-been. In Tree Hill, she had this warped, forced identity.

She had decided a long time ago now that she was not the girl in the book. Perhaps she never was. She didn't ask for the fame; she never deserved the recognition.

And that was why the biggest thing two years in Los Angeles had taught Peyton Sawyer was that she was never – ever – going back to Tree Hill.


	2. Youth Knows No Pain

**More Peyton angst. I don't know where it comes from. I'm a happy person, honestly! We catch up with Lucas and the plotline gets properly started next chapter. Chapter title is a song by Lykke Li.**

* * *

LOS ANGELES, CA – Watch out Lucas – your small-town sweetheart might not be so innocent after all.

Peyton Sawyer, the reclusive star of young author Lucas Scott's breakout autobiography _An Unkindness of Ravens_, has certainly not taken her newfound fame in her stride.

In the real world, away from all of Scott's literary praise, Peyton Sawyer certainly has an ugly streak.

Sawyer, who is yet to agree to any public appearance or interview, despite being reportedly offered such by the best and deepest pockets in Hollywood, has finally uttered her first public words since the book's astronomical release.

And it wasn't pretty.

"Go f**k yourselves," Sawyer lambasted at a group of photographers patiently waiting outside her workplace Sire Records in West Hollywood yesterday.

"Go print that in your f**king, useless paper."

Whoa, Peyton. Where's all that good old-fashioned Southern charm and hospitality?

Scott's novel largely deals with the extraordinary true events of Sawyer's high-school experiences in Tree Hill, North Carolina.

And it remains baffling that Sawyer is unwilling or unable to deal with the extra attention foisted on her since the book's release, despite her co-characters making nothing but gracious media appearances in recent times.

Scott's real-life half-brother, Nathan, who also features strongly in the book, recently accompanied Lucas to a book signing in Washington D.C., and stayed for a full five hours to sign books and take pictures with adoring fans – a perfect gentleman.

Nathan had nothing but praise for Sawyer, and laughed off the poor impression that Sawyer gave in public.

"Yeah, she's definitely a loose cannon," Nathan, a high school ex-boyfriend of Sawyer's, said.

"But that's part of her charm. Oh, and she has this weird thing about cameras. Something in her past. If you read the book, you'd understand. I wouldn't get too close."

While the rest of Scott's friends seem honoured to appear in public, Peyton's recent appearances only serve to paint her as ungrateful, unsupportive and increasingly rude – a picture wholly opposite to the rose-coloured description she was given in Scott's book.

Scott remains unable to explain or elaborate on Peyton's unfriendly manner in public, and we have yet to find out how and why their relationship ended so suddenly.

But the public is sick of being told that one thing is true, and then seeing a totally different story playing out in real life. Scott's readers are tired of being fed lies about a supposedly true novel and then being rudely berated by a central character just for believing them. And Peyton Sawyer should no longer be thought of as the hero that Scott depicts her to be.

It's time for the public to know the truth about Sawyer and Scott. We urge the real Peyton Sawyer to step forward.

* * *

**One Month Later**

The Book – and yes, she had begun to term the Book with a capital B due to the incredible influence it had on her life – had been released two months ago, but it had been in her life, as some kind of unknown, powerful entity, for much, much longer than that.

The pre-Book days, though admittedly scattered sporadically with psycho stalkers and dead moms and heart attacks and a whole host of other adult things, were the days when she thought of herself as still innocent, still naïve, and much less cynical about the world and the people in it.

She might not have looked innocent, this pre-Book Peyton. No, this Peyton certainly walked around with a hard outer shell. She didn't let too many people in; she didn't trust.

And rightly so, she thought. For Peyton's life back then was hers to live. Though confusing and scary, she alone was free to determine its direction. She was proud of all the mistakes she had made, because ultimately they were hers.

And then this book arrived, this love letter to her, as the reviewers crowed. _Scott's youthful voice sears true throughout both the wonderfully mundane and appallingly tragic events in this stunning debut. The characters in Scott's book could be you, and they could be me: Scott has managed to capture the inner mystery yet aching simplicity in a story of five teenagers desperate to find their place in this ever-baffling world. The love story between Scott and Sawyer is one for the ages and one for us right now – young, honest and astonishingly raw. _

Peyton saw it differently. And she searched, but could not find one review which saw things from her side. It was not a love letter, she thought. It was a warning. A manual on how _not _to live your life.

This Book, which grasped Peyton's choices and analysed and dissected them, as though she was a lifeless entity and Lucas her humble superior. This Book, as Peyton saw it, which started by saying how wonderful and beautiful and perfect Peyton was, but then simultaneously laughed indulgently at how much of a trainwreck her life was. It preached of her integrity; then warned its readers not to follow Peyton's foolish path.

What gave Lucas the right to write this? To write about her life as if it was a finished thing, as though her first meagre eighteen years summed up her entire existence? As though he, the omniscient, faultless narrator, could do no wrong, as if his stumbling journey through high school was not just as twisted and confusing as hers?

Who the hell writes an autobiography at eighteen, anyway?

Peyton was the girl in the book. She had been for months. She had endured people approaching her as if they knew her intimately, when they didn't know the first thing about her. She had been reduced to ink on a page, to paper flicking under fingers, to whispered gossip among strangers.

She hadn't seen Lucas in over a year, since a lonely hotel room in Los Angeles and a night bursting full of accusations and bitter ends.

A year ago, they spoke the last real conversation they would ever have. Now, she never wanted to speak to him again. She didn't know how on earth he would be able to look her in the eyes after he had exploited their entire relationship.

Yet, in the bottom of her heart, in the depths of her soul, in a place secret even to herself, there was this _pull_. This _ache._ This feeling that her anger would melt delightedly away if she only allowed it. The feeling that maybe the book _wasn't so bad_, that Lucas' intentions were only good and that she had misunderstood it all.

But she stayed angry, and she walked around defensively as if she was waiting for someone to accuse her of being That Girl In The Book, and she cursed Lucas and his precious Book as though it was wholly responsible for every problem in her life.

She had only ever let one person fully into her life, she reminded herself. And that person had failed her so immensely that she would never make that mistake again.

* * *

Work at a record label starts late and finishes late. Peyton would see record execs piling into work around eleven, with an obvious hangover, some mismatched combination of roughly-ironed clothes, and last night's makeup smeared unattractively across their tired faces.

Peyton had grown used to working steadily throughout the afternoon and well into the light. She could watch the L.A. sky fade from day to night from the small window in her office, its darkness creating a veil over the city, making all that it shrouded look gentle and mysterious; a pleasing change from the usual traffic and scramble that was downtown Los Angeles at peak hour. But up on level four, in her tiny workspace with her narrow window, watching the sun wink on the horizon as if it, like she, had a secret, Peyton could feel some semblance of peace and calm.

For some reason, she liked being at work in the dark. Everyone was in a strange, feverish rush. Coffee ran like water. Ideas came easier at night, she was told. _Your most creative time of day is between eight and ten pm. Use it_. It was like being at a slumber party, with people shouting orders across the hall and playing music at full blast, or muttering incessantly into cell phones that never left their grasp, harnessing the favourable time distance between L.A. and New York at this time of night.

Peyton's mornings, then, were her own. She was a late sleeper in the winter, when the chilly L.A. mornings confined her happily into mornings of lazy sleep-ins and late, coffee-fuelled breakfasts. But in summer, as it was now, she left the house as early as she could get out of bed. She would walk lazily through the streets of L.A., stopping to glance at flea markets or sample a cappuccino at her favourite café, vastly grateful that the Los Angeles tabloids had thankfully decided weeks ago that she was too boring and un-newsworthy for their scrutiny.

And every day, without fail, she would go to this quaint little bookshop on the same street as her work. She didn't know _why_ she was drawn to the bookstore. But as soon as she entered, and began to pace the cramped aisles and thumb the dusty books, she felt calm.

And, yes, she would look for Lucas' book, still as popular as ever. She would find it in the non-fiction or bestseller section, unless it was sold out, as it often was.

She didn't want to admit it, but her eyes were constantly searching out that familiar cover, those particular words. When she found it she would grasp at it hungrily and flick to any part of the text, desperate for even one random sentence of his concise prose.

And of course she would buy the book if she found it. Her bookshelf was half-full with different editions of the same novel. A hardcover, a large-print, an audiobook read in that achingly familiar deep rumble.

She told herself that by buying them, she was ensuring that one less person would get to read the book. Her logic was warped, sure. It was one tiny, dusty bookshop, filled mostly with travel guides, dog-eared secondhand paperbacks and a bunch of hippie, dreadlocked customers who mostly looked like they hadn't seen sunlight in days. Come to think of it, with her messy, tangled hair, a casual grey singlet dress and combat boots, Peyton probably didn't look too different.

But it gave her some confidence, some security, to take the books away with her. Like her being at this one bookshop mattered somehow; made a difference, however miniscule. It was like she was saving the L.A. public from her tragic story, one book at a time. At least, that's what she told herself.

But then why did she display the books almost proudly, in the centre of her bookshelf, next to her cherished family photographs? Why was each copy of the book as crumpled and well-read as the last? And why did she still carry a copy of the novel in her already over-packed bag every damn day of her life?

* * *

Today, the breeze seemed to blow Peyton into the bookstore.

"Hi," she said to Ben, the owner, and somehow her Southern accent had crept momentarily back in, twisting the word, making it longer, broader.

"Mornin', sugar," he chirped back at her, mimicking her drawl. Peyton cleared her throat, embarrassed at her mistake. After a few solid months of making fun of Peyton's bizarre book-buying habits, it seemed thankfully like Ben had almost hit the last of his material. She sighed inwardly, realising she had just given him another topic to mercilessly tease her about. But she loved it, really. His familiar cackle-like laugh and taunts were completely in good nature and had become a staple part of her summer mornings, along with a coffee, a flaky almond croissant from the cart outside, and the latest issue of _B. Davis_. Anyway, she had so few relationships in her life anymore that were truly genuine and not forced through work or some other situation. It was nice to have a real rapport with someone in L.A, even if he was just some guy in a bookstore.

"What're you after, darlin'?" he asked expectantly. "'Cause we're fresh out of _Gone With The Wind_, sorry."

She laughed. "Aw, shucks." She clicked a finger in front of her in mock disappointment, then raised her eyebrows and looked at him searchingly, with a _what-do-you-think_ expression. "You know me, Ben. The usual."

"You know," the owner observed seriously, "it's not exactly normal to have a usual order at a bookshop. Favourite coffee, yeah. Lunch orders, sure. But books? Not so much. Most of us are happy enough with one copy."

"Not me," she replied breezily. "I'm greedy like that."

Her hair was just washed and gleaming, despite the still-remaining clashing black highlights underneath. She looked youthful and blooming and beautiful.

The precise combination was unfathomable. It might have been the endearing slip into her Southern twang. Maybe it was the way her hair caught the light and seemingly refused not to sparkle, as if appreciating the sunny California weather. Because today, despite her best efforts to blend in, Peyton Sawyer had once again managed to walk into a room and cause everyone to notice.

"Yeah," Ben replied, a beat too late, looking at her for a moment and chuckling, as if attempting vainly to figure her out. Finally, he settled for wrinkling his nose sympathetically, booting up his computer, and pushing his reading glasses further up the bridge of his nose. "Giving Lucas Scott another royalty paycheck, huh? Lucky guy."

"Actually, I like to hope the money is going to the poor, suffering fatcat publishing companies," she quipped. "Helps me sleep better at night."

He grinned. "Well, either way, Peyton, you really are beefing up my kids' trust fund, you know that?"

"Which I'm sure it desperately needs," she replied dryly.

"You're not wrong," Ben agreed, laughing weakly. He gestured around the store, where a handful of lost-looking backpackers were half-heartedly thumbing the covers of a few dusty travel magazines. "As you can see, the book-selling trade isn't the _most_ lucrative business out there. The book _writing_ trade, on the other hand…" he countered, biting his tongue in concentration and tapping quickly at his computer keyboard. He whistled loudly when he brought up Peyton's account history. "How much money has Lucas Scott made out of you to date?"

Peyton set her mouth. It was honestly unintentional, but what Ben said hit slightly too close for comfort. "Too much, Ben," she whispered softly, and her eyes told him that their conversation was over. Ben raised his eyebrows in resignation, nodded his head grimly and flicked his eyes back to his computer, tactful enough to know when to mind his own business.

"The computer says I've got one copy of _Ravens _left in stock," he said airily, as though the tone of their conversation had never changed. "I tell ya, it's been two months and they're still selling like crazy. Try over on the far wall. I think I saw one there yesterday." He pointed her in the right direction and she nodded a brisk thanks.

Ben had only seriously asked Peyton once why she constantly came in only to buy the same book over and over. It was a couple of months ago, the day after she had bought her first copy of _Ravens_, and Ben recognised with curiosity the quiet, blonde girl who took off her dark sunglasses only after she had thoroughly scoped out the room, and who carried the book up to the register with the exact same expression of wariness that he had noticed the day before when she had bought an identical copy of the same book.

"I remember you," he began conversationally. "What happened? One book not good enough? You _can_ reread books, you know."

"I'm buying this one for a friend, actually," she replied coldly, looking away with a scowl. She was so used to people recognising her midway through a conversation that she had learned to completely do away with chatty small talk. She just wanted to buy her book and get out fast.

He held up his hands in mock surrender, not wanting to pry. But her hostility was strange to him, because she didn't look at all like an unfriendly person. "Got it, blondie," he said smartly. "Read you loud and clear."

She nodded impatiently, eager to have the sale processed. "Sorry," she said, softening slightly. "I'm just kind of in a hurry."

"Can I ask you something, though?" Ben blurted, twirling the copy of _Ravens_ in his hands, out of her reach. He wasn't going to give up that easily. The bookshop wasn't the most interesting place to work, and he mostly got his daily kicks from the customers that passed by the shop. "From a purely…marketing perspective?"

She grinned reluctantly, and shrugged her shoulders. "Sure."

"Just putting this out there," he continued. "Because you're a customer, and you seem like a fairly astute kind of person, and as you can see," – he gestured around the shop – "we tend to get some… let's just say, less than desirable patrons in here…"

"What's your point?" Peyton shot quickly, but she was shaking her head and smiling at him.

"What would you think about a two books for one special?"

"Somewhat unoriginal," she observed fairly.

"Hold your horses, Miss Impatient. Here's the catch: the two books have to be two copies of the exact same book."

She giggled doubtfully.

"C'mon," he insisted. "If it means I get girls like you coming into my shop, then it's gotta be a good idea, right?"

She relaxed, still laughing, and he finally saw the witty, clever person that he had initially noticed in her face when she walked in. "Speaking as your advertising and marketing adviser," – she paused and narrowed her eyes at him – "I can call myself that, right?"

"Oh, yeah," Ben nodded briskly. "Yeah, I think we're way past that now."

"Naturally," Peyton agreed seriously. "To be honest, I think I'd probably be the only person who'd ever be interested in that kind of deal."

"Damn it!" Ben replied flippantly. "And here I was thinking I had it all figured out!"

"Sorry," she laughed. "Keep brainstorming, though. Just remember to run them by me first."

"Seriously," he said boldly, finally confident enough to ask. "Why are you really buying a second copy? And don't give me any of that 'gift for a friend' bullshit, because nobody reads a book and then decides to give it as a gift, all in under 24 hours. Not even someone as clever as you."

Peyton sighed. "You're nosy, aren't you?" she observed shrewdly.

He shrugged, grinning broadly. "What else have I got to do around here all day?"

She scoffed. "Fine," she conceded, "I kind of used to know the author, okay?"

"Really!" Ben exclaimed with interest, and he began flipping through the book. "I'll finally have to read it, then."

Peyton inhaled a sharp breath. She was shocked. Because _everyone_ had read the book. "You haven't read it?" she asked in astonishment.

"Nah," drawled Ben casually, still thumbing through the pages of the book, "never had the interest, really. But if you recommend it – "

"I don't," interrupted Peyton sharply. She grabbed the book out of his hands. "I don't recommend it. Not at all."

He raised her eyebrows, looked at her for a moment, and then shrugged. "Well, if you say so," he agreed, unconcernedly. "I won't read it then. To be honest, the author looks kind of like a tool. What's he like, anyway?"

"He's…."

She thought. It would be so easy to agree with him here. To laugh – _yeah, he's definitely a tool _– and bond with her new friend, and make it even more clear to him that he should never read the book. This guy knew nothing about her. He was so refreshingly_ indifferent_ towards her life. He couldn't care less about her past. He wouldn't know her from any other person who walked in off the street. And there was something freeing in that. But it didn't – and it couldn't – change the way she felt.

"He's…" she started again. Her head fell, and the book's front cover fell open to the dedication page, and there, stark and true, were the book's first opening words:

_To my mom, for raising me with integrity._

_To Lily, a precious flower._

_And to my first editor: P.S., I love you._

"He's a brilliant writer," was what she finally whispered softly, as her index finger unconsciously touched the two letters that Ben didn't realise formed the initials of her name.

* * *

Today, with a dozen copies – at last count – of that very book sitting on her shelf at home, and two months since it had been released, Peyton set off, thumbing the books casually, yet intent on that one cover, that familiar group of words, that Ben had indicated was still sitting somewhere on the shelves.

After half an hour, despite Ben's insistence that he had one copy left, she was sure _Ravens_ wasn't anywhere in the store. _Shit_, she thought. _There was a copy here yesterday, I'm sure of it._ And now one more person in L.A. was going to know her story. _I should have arrived here earlier._

She was steps away to the exit, when –

"Excuse me, but is this you?"

Peyton closed her eyes and grimaced. She hadn't counted on the books already in customers' hands. On her heel she wheeled around, eyes pre-emptively narrowed, ready to correct the enquirer with one of her many stored-up vicious replies.

It had been weeks since she was last recognised. Last time, it was a group of college guys in Starbucks, who were laughing and joking and making way too much noise for a quiet café.

"Hey, look, it's Peyton Sawyer! From the book! From Us Weekly, remember? The love story special?"

"Hey Peyton, how's Lucas? Still pissed that you broke up with him? He looked gay anyway. How about we go out, you and me, baby? I can be your Lucas, if you need me to!"

"Fuck off," she had snarled, and not entirely satisfied with her comeback effort, she stalked out of the coffee shop, not before tipping her hot coffee into the loudest guy's lap for emphasis.

Today's voice was much higher and softer. Peyton turned around. It was a young girl, no older than thirteen, and, sure enough, she was holding a shiny copy of _Ravens_.

"This girl," the teenager said. "Is it you?"

She was pointing to the centrefold of the book, where the publisher had inserted glossy photographs of all of Lucas' characters. Peyton didn't ever remember giving them permission to publish her photo. Maybe they didn't need it. Her objections didn't seem to be worth much to Lucas.

This particular picture was of Peyton, Brooke and Lucas. It was taken by Brooke, Peyton remembered, using Peyton's borrowed Polaroid camera. It was in their junior year, right after the Ravens had won a game. Brooke and Lucas were dating at the time.

Brooke was smiling toothily at the camera, a neat 'R' painted on her high cheekbone. Peyton and Lucas were looking uncertainly at each other, seemingly unaware that Brooke had pressed the shutter. They were laughing, elated at the win, but there was also something else in their eyes. Secrecy? Simmering teenage lust? No, nothing that covert. Simply the start of something completely new, but unwaveringly right and purely _true_.

Peyton looked back into the young girl's eyes. The girl looked so hopeful and optimistic. Peyton found that she didn't want to lie to her.

She opened her mouth to own up, to admit to being the girl in the photograph. _What would the Peyton two years ago have said?_

"Yes, that's me," the eighteen-year-old Peyton would have said, smiling. "And that's my best friend Brooke – doesn't she look pretty here? We were only sixteen, can you believe? And that's Lucas, the love of my life. He had just scored the winning shot – he's so talented. I love him so much. Maybe someday you'll find someone you're in love with, too."

Oh, how she wanted to say that to this girl, this innocent little thing. How she wanted to tell her that life never changes from when you are a teenager, not once, not ever. How she still felt as blissfully in love with the world now as she had four years ago, cheering on the Ravens at Tree Hill High. Oh, how she wanted to declare that life, and love, and fate, would always be on this young girl's side.

Peyton caught sight of her eyes in the picture again. The teenage Peyton looked so wildly happy, so joyfully sure of herself.

Then Peyton remembered she hadn't spoken to Brooke in a year. How she felt ashamed to talk to Nathan or Haley after she and Lucas had broken up – like they had nothing in common anymore. How James Lucas Scott was growing up without knowing or caring who she was. How she had let every single one of Lucas' many calls go to voicemail, and then eventually changed her number altogether. How she knew, with painful certainty, that she would never be seeing any of these people ever again.

"No," Peyton said slowly, looking into the teenager's wide, blue eyes and then back down at the curly-haired girl in the photograph. "No, I don't know who that person is."

And while the young girl looked at her in disbelief, Ben, who had been listening to the whole conversation, sidled up next to her, grabbed the book out of the girl's hands, and looked intently at the picture in front of him.

"But that's you," he insisted cluelessly. "This girl, in the book. It's you." He lined up the images and looked left at the image in the book and right to its identical, real-life manifestation.

And then, as if grappling with something uncertain, as though he had just realised something that, although surprising, somehow made all the sense in the world, he whispered slowly, "Peyton, was this book written about you?"

And as though they were playing some kind of warped game of pass-the-parcel, Peyton then snatched the book away from him. She'd had enough. She was sick of it. Sick of being defined into the box that she had been written into. Sick of everyone she met being told exactly who she was. Disappointed that one of the few people who didn't know about her past was now going to read about all her pain, and humiliation, and heartbreak, thanks to Lucas Scott. She looked carefully at the smiling picture in the centrefold, and then, before she really knew what she was doing, before she could register that ten people in the store, including Ben, were now watching her intently, she tore the photo out, threw the vandalised book uncaringly on the floor, and fleetingly looked at Ben with wounded, cheated green eyes.

And then Peyton Sawyer swept quietly out of the bookstore and into the anonymous, safe Los Angeles street, where she was swallowed immediately by the surging crowd passing obliviously by. She could feel the photo safely crumpled up in her furled fist.

She wouldn't ever go back to that bookstore. And she was taking the girl in the book with her.


	3. Love Ya Like A One Night Stand

**Thanks for all your kind words. I won't be able to update for a few weeks so hopefully this one is long enough until then! Sorry about the length and the huge amounts of Lucas/Lindsey, but on the upside... Lindsey's a bitch :) It was really fun to write! The title of this chapter is from a Dandy Warhols song.**

* * *

CD: I'm here today with Lucas Scott, one of the most talented young writers in America and surprisingly one of the most handsome guys we've ever had in the studio. Lucas, you know other authors probably hate you, right?

LS: Oh, I hope not, Christina. Why's that?

CD: Bestseller at twenty, national book tour kicking off next month, probably raking in the cash, and to top it all off you look like a movie star. You're four from four. Most authors – and I hope this isn't a generalisation – but they're old, poor, unsuccessful and look like hell.

LS: I guess I just got lucky with the book, Christina. I've got a great team working with me and I've had some interesting stories in my life to tell. That's what every writer needs, right? And I've seen much better looking authors. Did you ever see Hemingway in his heyday? Man, that bone structure.

CD: So, tell us about the book, Lucas. _An Unkindness of Ravens_, published by Putnam & Pratt. It's been released, what…?

LS: Two months now.

CD: Two months. And the response has been huge. Tell us about that.

LS: Yeah. Well, we had no idea what the public reaction to the book would be like. I mean, I've got no experience. I'm the first to admit that. I wrote this book during high school and my late teens. I got a dozen rejection letters before I got my book deal. I had no idea what I was in for. We were always secretly optimistic, maybe. We knew we had a good story to tell. We polished it up for a year before it was ready for release and we were very happy with the result. But we really didn't expect this kind of response. It's massive. Overwhelming, and very humbling.

CD: Now, tell us about your characters, because that's what the audience really wants to know about. Because the story is an autobiography, right? Completely a true story. Would you agree – and this is what a lot of people are saying – that your book is perhaps more popular because it's based on a true story? Because the people and situations in it are entirely real? Because Brooke Davis and Nathan Scott and all the rest out there today, the real-life versions of the characters in your book, can vouch for what you're saying?

LS: Oh, for sure. I think that's a big part of it. My friends and family are a huge part of my life and that means they are a huge part of the book. I brought all of that onto what I wrote on the page. I didn't censor; I didn't leave anything out. People know that what I'm saying is true because they can see the proof right in front of them. And I think that's made the work a whole lot more relatable in the end.

CD: Have you spoken to them since the book's release? Your friends, your characters, whatever you want to call them?

LS: [Laughs] Friends, definitely. I think Brooke Davis would kill me if I started referring to her as a character. Yeah, I've spoken to most of them. Most people are really happy with their portrayal. Brooke was worried, I think, that I would make her look shallow or superficial, but I told her I would have never done that. She's got too big a heart.

CD: And what about the rumours out of L.A. that Peyton Sawyer – your ex-girlfriend and one of the main characters – is furious with the amounts of publicity she's receiving?

LS: Oh, well, I haven't heard too much about that, really –

CD: [interrupting] Lucas, she swore and gave the middle finger to a group of paparazzi last month in L.A. It's been widely reported she went on some kind of rampage in a Los Angeles bookshop and ripped up a copy of your novel in front of a dozen bystanders. It's a miracle the paparazzi wasn't there. Of course, she's been all over the tabloids. The video has been the top hit on our website alone for the last seven days. It's an undisputable PR disaster for your publishing company. You must have heard about that.

LS: Okay, yeah. If you want to know the truth, yes, I have. Certainly the publicity has been surprising for all of us, and yes it can get a bit too much at times –

CD: Lucas, can I speak candidly for a minute? Would I be right in saying – and this is just pure guesswork based on Peyton's conduct over the last few months – but it seems awfully like she doesn't want anything to do with the book at all, or with you, for that matter. It's now quite clear that you two aren't together anymore. What happened, Lucas? What happened to make one of the strongest love stories I've ever read crumble so colossally?

LS: Nothing happened, Christina. Peyton and I aren't together anymore. We've made no secret of that. We live on opposite sides of the country. She wishes me the best and I do the same for her. And I'd really like to focus on the book today, if you don't mind.

CD: Lucas, answer me this truthfully. Did Peyton ever give you her unequivocal permission to publish this novel?

LS: [silence]

CD: It's a simple question. Do you understand, Lucas, that some people might not be comfortable being the main character in a novel that was always, despite your misplaced modesty, destined to speed to the top of bestseller lists? Do you realise that not everyone – and especially not someone like Peyton, given the tragic events that have happened in her life – wants to be famous? Wants to have the world knowing their name, wants to be living their lives in the public eye? Wants to have their high school boyfriends including them so irreversibly in what is essentially a deeply personal love letter that's gone viral?

LS: Of course I realise that, Christina. But what you're heavily implying here is that Peyton and I broke up due to some disagreement about this book, and I can tell you quite firmly, without going into personal details, that what you're saying is simply not true. And it's actually quite personally hurtful to me to have people saying that.

CD: I just don't buy it, Luke. Every other one of your friends has been perfectly visible and happy to appear on camera and discuss your book. Brooke is one of your ex-girlfriends too, I take it, yet you two seem to be on much better terms than you and Peyton. And this story – you wrote this story. You knew how special your relationship was with Peyton. You described it to us, you explained it to your readers, and they understood and believed. Then Peyton disappears for two months and then all of a sudden the media unearth this girl who is clearly very angry or distraught, and who refuses to speak to you or play along with the press circus. It's obvious something very ugly has happened between then and now. Explain it to us, Lucas. How did it all fall apart? Where did it start, and how on earth did it all end? You say you don't censor your writing but what about the breakdown of your relationship with Peyton? Your fans want to know, Lucas. By writing your book, you made them want to know.

LS: Actually, I'd prefer to stop talking about about my personal life so if we could move on -

CD: Then why release the book at all? I'm sorry, but if you didn't want to talk about your personal life, why the hell did you publish 400 pages about it?

* * *

The tall, slim woman with the crisply-ironed pencil skirt and sky-high Manolo Blahniks punched five random buttons on her Bang & Olufsen television remote feverishly before the screen finally clicked to black, then tossed the remote across the table. It skidded off and promptly landed in a potted bamboo plant that had evidently been shoved carelessly onto the floor. Her visitor, a man with sandy blonde hair clad in a slightly over-casual t-shirt, stared bemusedly up at her as she stamped across the room and finally flung herself into her wide mahogany desk chair. She shook her head in irritation and threw her long, silky brown hair out over her shoulders – a telltale sign that she was very angry.

"Peyton Sawyer," Lindsey Strauss began, pointing one immaculately manicured nail at the blank television screen, "is really starting to piss me off."

Lucas Scott, sitting across from her like a child in the principal's office, crossed his arms and didn't dare say a word. He wasn't going to touch that one.

"Do you know how this makes you look?" Lindsey hissed. "How it makes your book look? Peyton Sawyer, the fan favourite, the darling of Tree Hill, flipping off photographers? Swearing? Plastered on every gossip website in the country? She is out of control. _This_ has gone way out of control."

She slammed a hardcover copy of _An Unkindness Of Ravens_ down on her desk, and it seemed vaguely threatening. Lucas thought now might be an appropriate time to step in.

"Calm down," he soothed. "It was just one bad interview, alright? That woman was relentless. I could tell as soon as I walked in there. She would have stopped at nothing to get a reaction. She was pushing and pushing and pushing – trying to get a response out of me."

"And to think I told the producers not to ask about Peyton," snarled Lindsey distractedly, not listening to a word Lucas was saying. "They knew she was off-limits. Book tour and dates only. I specifically made that clear. Crystal. Fucking. Clear. How dare they? I mean, really. Where do they get off? They're now officially blacklisted and they can't say they weren't warned. You can be sure that Putnam and Pratt will never co-operate with them ever again, and I'll be alerting our publishing associates. I have _never_, and I mean _never,_ seen such unprofessionalism. Impartial journalism my ass, Luke. They have made a very powerful enemy."

"It was a bad interview," Lucas repeated. "It will be better next time, I promise."

He looked nowhere near as concerned about the situation as Lindsey did, who was now out of her chair again and pacing furiously around the room. In contrast, Lucas leaned back in his chair, clasped hands comfortably finding the back of his shaven head, and studied his editor through his narrowed blue eyes, looking mildly wary for an entirely different reason.

He had known Lindsey for well over a year. They had spent a good nine months holed up in Lindsey's office in midtown Manhattan, editing his book and largely ignoring the outside world, and then another three months working together in pre-publication, devising a marketing strategy. It was a relatively small publishing company, and Lindsey had somehow become his literary agent as well as his editor, and accordingly was involved in all stages of the publication process. It all occurred just after Lucas had broken up with Peyton – literally, hours after he had slammed that hotel room door – and, if anything, he found it a refreshing distraction to bury his feelings and just _work_ on something. He could admit – and three months into their professional relationship he had confessed such to Lindsey – that she was, albeit in her peculiarly brusque and slightly over-formal manner, helping him to overcome a broken heart.

Soon after, he and Lindsey had memorised each of their favourite late-night Thai takeout dishes, debated for and against the inclusion of what felt like every single word in the book, and eventually knew each other so well that – as Lindsey put it – it was like they were married. Almost.

One Thursday night, that figure of speech had been tested. They were in Lindsey's office arguing about the semantics and structure of one particular annoying sentence until, after twenty full minutes of vehement opposition, they both promptly realised they had been in agreement the entire time. Laughing, they both agreed it probably indicated that they should call it a night, and Lucas was packing up when Lindsey offhandedly suggested they grab a quick drink at a bar across the street. _Why not_, Lucas had rationalised. It was a perfectly innocent offer. It was nearing the final stages of the editing process and for months he and Lindsey had been nothing but professional and cordial toward one another. But he liked his serious, clever editor, and knew it was probably wise that he got to know her on a more personal level. If the book's success was forthcoming, in all likelihood their professional relationship would continue for years to come.

The upshot was that after eight lonely months in an unfamiliar city, with few friends and no girlfriend, Lucas Scott found himself at only nineteen years of age in a fully-stocked and crowded bar in the middle of New York City with overflowing supplies of alcohol, a more-than-compliant bartender who didn't seem to want to see his ID and an undeniably gorgeous older woman who – after a few Mojitos, anyway – was surprisingly candid about her attraction toward him. In fact, after Lindsey whispered in his ear and made it perfectly clear where she wanted the night to end – and that _Lindsey Strauss_ _always_ _got what she wanted_ – it was Lucas who suggested they hail a cab back to his apartment.

They slept together that night, and something changed in Lindsey afterward. Presumably she expected their romantic relationship to quickly blossom. But Lucas had not slept with another woman since Peyton, and although he tried to suppress it, he couldn't help but compare the two.

With Lindsey, it was clothes ripped off haphazardly and forgotten on the floor and fingers dragged roughly over skin and a fast, breathless release. It was just sex, in the most mechanical, characterless sense of the word. Whether it was with Lindsey or some random stranger, it was all the same: just anonymous, meaningless sex. But with Peyton, it was so much more. It was fast too, sometimes, desperate and ardent, but there was always a moment of stillness, of complete clarity amidst the exhilaration, where they would look into each other's eyes and simply _realise_. It was the feeling that they were discovering something new together, unfurling something pristine and sacred, and, oh, they must be the only ones to know, yes, the only two to ever find it. It was the familiarity of memorising someone's body intimately but the thrill of finding something new every time; it was fervently kissing a random patch of bare, underappreciated skin until it was pink and flushed and glowing; it was hands running through impossibly sexy, wild curls of hair and trailing up impossibly long, endless legs, and knowing for certain that _nothing would ever feel this fucking perfect_. It was not sex. It was making love. And Lucas knew immediately that a relationship with Lindsey could never compare.

The morning after, nursing a pounding headache, a strange feeling of regret, and frequent, inexplicable twinges of guilt, he told Lindsey quite firmly that their relationship should stay strictly platonic, and she was quick to agree. But sex, whether impersonal or not, will change any relationship, and something shifted in theirs. Lindsey was never quite as friendly again; perhaps always just a moment too quick to argue with Lucas, and sometimes he got a sinking feeling that there was a whisper of spite underneath her amiable façade.

The truth was, Lucas got the impression that Lindsey had never been denied anything in her life. She had a privileged upbringing, graduated Columbia with honours and was set up immediately in a cushy office at her father's publishing company. She never knew what it was to work hard at something and fail anyway; she got anything she wanted with the most minimal of effort. She undoubtedly considered herself attractive, and indeed in the weeks after they slept together Lucas eventually realised how vain she really was. She spoke harshly about various ex-boyfriends which made it clear to Lucas that near to all of her relationships had ended on bad terms. Meek and supportive before their night together, Lucas was now increasingly noticing how she would mutter the occasional offhand taunt under her breath – often, for some reason, at Peyton's expense – or sneer some unexpected, nasty remark about Lucas' personal life in the middle of an otherwise polite group conversation. She would go days without answering his emails or phone calls and give no plausible explanation for her silence. She took weeklong vacations which took her out of the city at a moment's notice. It seemed paranoid, but Lucas got the feeling she was increasingly neglecting her editorial obligations toward him. But then sometimes he could swear that she had covertly edited some paragraphs without his input, or talked to senior editors about the progression of his book without including him. More and more, Lucas was suspecting that by saying no to Lindsey Strauss that morning, he had set off an underlying streak of malice in their relationship which would at some point inevitably emerge and jeopardise everything he had ever worked for.

And as he sat today watching his editor stalk around her office in the worst mood he had ever seen her in, Lucas suspected, with a sinking heart and a rush of foreboding, that today might indeed be that day.

Lindsey sat back down in her chair with a huff and looked at Lucas appraisingly with her sharply plucked eyebrows raised, as if daring the author to contribute. Lucas immediately arranged his face into what he considered was a sympathetic grin, which evidently was the wrong answer.

"Oh, I see what this is," said Lindsey, clasping her hands together with a humourless smile that never quite reached her eyes. "This is all some kind of joke to you, isn't it, Lucas? Your novel. Just a huge gag. Is that what this is? Well, very funny. Just really fucking hilarious. Although it's your book's reputation that'll be the joke soon."

"Excuse me?" Lucas was caught off guard. "Linds, know that there's no way I would ever consider this a joke. This is my livelihood, my whole world written down onto paper. You know that. I was only thinking that in the grand scheme of things, it's really just one interview. One jackass reporter. There's no need to take it too hard. The book's been getting positive press and reviews on the whole."

"I'll have you know that _jackass _you refer to is the anchor of the highest-rated breakfast news program on the East Coast, as well as a founder of one of the biggest gossip news websites out of Los Angeles," Lindsey replied icily. "She virtually has the whole of America at her fingertips. She also happens to be a very well-regarded investigative journalist. She was the one, if you'll recall, who broke the story on dear Peyton's whereabouts, when even her own boyfriend couldn't find her after his book was published – "

"_Ex_-boyfriend," Lucas corrected, fuming, the remark cutting deeper than she intended, knowing full well that Lindsey knew every miniscule detail of his relationship status and had deliberately made the mistake to antagonise him. "I wasn't looking for Peyton, so I could hardly find her, could I? And I couldn't really give a shit about how many stories the woman's _broken_ when anyone can see she's a bitter, Botoxed old twit who pries into innocent people's personal lives in the name of so-called _investigative journalism_. What a load of crap. Wasn't it you, anyway, who two minutes ago was saying that she was unprofessional?" Lindsey's contradictory attitude, although now all too typical for her, was infuriating. It seemed only moments before that she was denouncing the journalist's conduct, then as soon as Lucas agreed, she would switch direction and defend her. It was like she was automatically arguing with Lucas for the sake of conflict. But he knew that side of her now. She had been doing it for months.

"I said she was unprofessional, Lucas," said Lindsey shrilly, adjusting her fitted blazer primly. "I didn't say her opinion shouldn't be respected. She's got a lot of people who listen to her, and has a huge influence on the image we want to portray to the media about your book."

"_Who cares_?" asked Lucas forcefully. "So she's a hotshot journalist. So a bunch of idiotic people hang onto her every word. But I've got a whole book tour ahead of me. Can't we let the book speak for itself? It's a _good book_. Why do we need to bring in all the outside complications? Who cares if I'm not with Peyton anymore, even if that reporter wouldn't shut up about her? It doesn't matter, does it?"

Oh, I think it does," said Lindsey, her voice at a low purr and her eyes similarly catlike in their malicious glare. "See, Lucas, I think it's time I'm fully honest with you."

Lucas' mouth hung open. His hands abruptly furled into tight fists. "Lindsey, we spent a year together editing this book. Long hours. Late nights. _Heated _arguments. And you're telling me now that you haven't been completely open with me from the beginning?"

"To a point," she confessed, but her eyes were still glinting and dancing, making her words seem insincere. She slid smoothly down further into her chair and folded one leg over the other, and her words came out in a complimentary, honeyed rush. "Lucas, you're a reasonable writer. You even had a pretty solid story when I met you."

_Pretty solid story? _Lucas wasn't buying the condescension. In fact, he was now quite incensed. He had trusted her with the single thing most important to him in his life. _Well_ - he thought briefly of a flash of brilliant green eyes, and of the person he was when he wrote that book –_ the second most important. _And now she was telling him it had all been a lie.

"But it wasn't the story or the writing that convinced me or any of the senior editors at Putnam and Pratt to publish your novel, Luke." Her voice was mysterious; elusive. She liked having this power of suspense over him.

"Then what was it?" asked Lucas reasonably, though his voice was quick to escalate. "Because I'm going to be honest with _you_ right now, _editor_, I'm pretty fucking pissed off right now. This is my book, remember? You might have edited it to within an inch of its life but it's still _mine_. I trusted you from day one. I put _everything_ on the line to get here today. _Everything_. My life, my friends, my family." _The love of my life_, he thought. But he didn't say it.

Lindsey paused, and breathed out sorrowfully, as though she really did care deeply about Lucas' feelings, although her eyes still held that malicious glint, that smirking spark.

"It's her, Luke. She's the reason we decided to publish your book in the first place."

And the particular string of words Lindsey unintentionally used reminded Lucas irrepressibly of a similar phrase he had spoken to a wholly different girl in what seemed like a completely different life: _It's you, Peyton. When all my dreams come true. The one I want next to me. It's you._

"It's Peyton. In fact, she's the only reason. The storyline, the writing: it was adequate, mildly interesting, if not a tad melodramatic – I mean, how many car crashes and underage heart attacks do you really need? – but the one drawcard, the one single detail that separated your book from the hundreds and thousands of unpublished, worthless manuscripts was _her._ The love story. The unrequited love, the secret high school hookups, the long-legged cheerleader, the sexual tension, the happily ever after – that's what your audience wants. That's why your audience responded. They wanted a reason to believe in true love. And you gave them what they wanted."

"Melodramatic? Lindsey – " Lucas was itching to bite back at that veiled jab, that snarky comment, but he refrained, took a breath, and moved onto a more important point. "Are you implying I wrote the book to exploit my relationship with Peyton? I – " And then, with a jolt, he paused. _Wait_, he thought. _Is that that Peyton thinks I did?_

Lindsey held up one arched finger to silence him. "I don't care why you wrote it. Even so, the single one thing that your book has going for it is _Peyton_. You might not see it, but I do. _She's_ the reason people are picking up the book in the first place. _She's _the reason the press are falling over it like it's the second fucking coming. _She's_ the reason that I'm fielding calls from reporters left and right and feeding gossip to the tabloids as fast as I can." And just then, she slammed a hand down hard on her cellphone, which true enough had been buzzing nonstop, and grinned at Lucas smugly as though it was some kind of evidence of what she was saying.

"You're doing _what?"_ Lucas shouted, outraged, and then he was up out of his seat, exerting his height, the smallest power he had left over Lindsey. But she was tall, too, and when she too shot upwards in her six-inch heels, suddenly it didn't seem like his height gave him that much advantage. They eyed each other off for an instant, face to face, like adversaries rather than a team, and Lucas could almost feel the sparks smouldering from her eyes. She looked supremely confident, as if nothing Lucas could say or do would possibly affect her. Lucas stared at her blankly. It felt like her powerful eyes were drawing him in, forcing him into submission. She held his gaze assertively for five, six, seven seconds, and must have found something deep within his eyes, because when the moment broke she looked even more satisfied with herself.

"Let me tell you something, Lucas," Lindsey said, sitting back down and beckoning for him to join her, her voice sickly sweet and oozing fake sympathy again. "The greatest success of your book is that it's all true. The fact that all of your characters are real people really resonated with the public. But that's also its greatest weakness, you see? Because when we have a main character like Peyton Sawyer refusing to co-operate and running her mouth off to the press, that poses an immense threat to your novel's continued popularity. Because that's when your audience starts thinking it was all a lie."

"How is that my fault?" Lucas shouted. He was angry at himself for that moment before, for those handful of seconds when he couldn't seem to control his emotions; when Lindsey's piercing gaze penetrated his just a hint too deep; when she saw more in his blue eyes than she ought to have. Saw a flash of pain; of vulnerability; of heartbreak. Discovered his weakness. "The story's true. Good writers write what they know. I wrote what came naturally. I wrote a good, strong story. Peyton's a little unhappy with the story, sure. She has every right to be. But you're my agent. It's your job to figure how to promote it."

"I'm going to level with you, Lucas," Lindsey said wearily, with a self-indulgent roll of those powerful eyes. "I did have a plan for this book. I really did. Nationwide publicity. Heavy cross-promotion, multiple marketing platforms. A sexy Brooke Davis action figure, maybe. A comic strip, a movie deal. You and your Tree Hill pals on every billboard this side of the Pacific Ocean. This was going to be my debut. My initiation into the world of big business book publishing. A chance to prove to my family that I had what it takes to be a big-time publisher. I could have made you and I a _lot_ of money."

Her eyes glazed over for a moment, and she held her gaze briefly on some unknown point in the distance. Lucas thought she looked slightly manic. Then she snapped out and gave a long-suffering sigh. "But instead, Peyton Sawyer has decided to put her big foot in my whole plan. Now I'm dealing with nosy reporters calling me at all hours for gory details of your latest relationship breakdown and writing scathing reviews of the book in their magazines and websites. I've got the most diehard fans ambushing me at signings asking _why aren't Lucas and Peyton in love like in the book? _I have booksellers refusing to stock the book in the nonfiction section because they've heard that the love story – the main plotline, the novel's central basis – isn't true anymore. And now I'm in 24-hour damage control thanks to your bitchy, ungrateful high school ex. Do you understand how that makes my life difficult? And that – that is _not_ the way I like to promote a book."

"And I'm sorry," said Lucas. "But what do you expect me to do about it? I'm not angry with Peyton for what she did. I _know _Peyton Sawyer. Our love _was _real. With all the press attention she's had to deal with, I completely understand why she's acting in this way. And I'm not about to do anything to interfere with her life, even more than I have already. I'm responsible for what Peyton's going through. I've now realised that. By releasing this book, I have changed her life for the worse. I've foisted unwanted fame and public attention onto the one person who has already had more in life to deal with than anyone else I know. And I have that on my conscience every day. But I'm not responsible for what impact that's having on the book sales. And neither is Peyton. Whatever she did, whatever she's feeling, it's totally justified. And I won't allow you to blame her. She has done nothing wrong. Absolutely nothing."

"But you know Peyton better than anyone," Lindsey countered simply. "You've got an influence over her that I could never match. And that makes you, not me, responsible for what she's doing to your book. Because you're the only one who can put it right. I'm not even in the damn book. You are. Peyton is. The audience want to hear it from you, not me. So it's up to you to get her back onside. And I don't care how you do it. Pay her off, bribe her, declare your love for her in one of your typical grand gestures. Just get it done. We need her front and centre to ensure the book remains profitable. Because if you don't, your audience is going to start dropping like flies. Endorsements, sponsorship deals, you name it, you'll lose it like that." She clicked her fingers.

"And not only that. Lucas – " and only at this did Lindsey look slightly apprehensive, perhaps genuinely apologetic – "It's my unhappy job to tell you that the executives at Putnam and Pratt no longer feel confident supporting you on a non-fiction venture without all the real characters' approval. It just seems…_insincere_. Luke, they're going to cut you off unless Peyton signs a contract saying she'll be one of the public faces of the book tour. That means no more funding, no more tour unless and until we get Peyton's unequivocal support."

"Well, I'm not going to do that," Lucas responded flatly, shrugging his shoulders nonchalantly. "In fact, you, Putnam and Pratt can go straight to hell. I won't meddle in Peyton Sawyer's life even more than I've done already, and I refuse to force her to do anything. Actually, I'd like to see anyone try."

"Lucas, your book is _failing_," Lindsey said incredulously, as if that single truth should be his sole guidance. "Slowly but surely. It might look successful now, but it's all just media buzz, speculation, nothing real. By the time we go on tour, without Peyton, your audience will have jumped ship and your book will only be famous for how spectacularly it collapsed. And I'm sorry. You know I hate to be the bearer of bad news." Yet she looked positively glowing again, smirking with suppressed mirth. "But you have to take drastic action or your book's success will be so short-lived you'll be back in Hicksville, North Carolina within a month, without a book deal _or_ a girlfriend. And we at Putnam and Pratt aren't going to hang around to pick up the pieces or offer you a second chance. "

"Lindsey, I'm telling you I'll do whatever it takes to save my book. It means the world to me. But I will not involve Peyton Sawyer. After months of the press hounding her every move, she deserves to live her life in peace. Without this book. Without…me, if that's what she wants."

Lindsey coughed pointedly. Lucas' voice escalated. Besides," he said, his words now interspersed with frequent scoffs of disbelief and titters from his editor, "I don't know her number. She – Peyton – changed her number right after the book was released. I – she doesn't want to hear from me. She's made that much clear." His cheeks turned crimson, ashamed. He didn't know where she was, what she was doing. He bit his lip. He _missed_ her. He wished – how he wished he just had her _number_, at least. Just that. Just the promise of her familiar voice on the other end of the line, even if he never had the courage to dial. Especially at a time like this.

"Oh, cut the shit," Lindsey replied, and, even in the light of all her previous brash statements, Lucas, midway into his sentimental daydream, jumped in his seat at that particular outburst. "If you don't have her precious number, then find someone who has. Surely you haven't isolated yourself from every single one of your friends quite yet. Or fly to L.A. and ambush her. That seems to be your specialty; I hear you did it once before. This is _your responsibility, _Lucas. If you don't speak to Peyton, then don't bother showing up for the book tour in a month's time. Persuade her to get in touch with Putnam and Pratt _right now _or the whole book deal is off and it's goodbye _Ravens_, hello a lifetime of small-time basketball coaching in some forgotten, backwater town. And don't you dare come back into my office until you've got it sorted."

She raised her eyebrows in a tacit dismissal, and had the insolence, the sheer rudeness, to flap a hand away from her, like she was swatting an irritating fly. And Lucas didn't choose to leave then because he had given up, or because he was going to submit to Lindsey's demands. He left because his fists were shaking so furiously and his writer's imagination was by then racing with so many imaginative insults that he thought it more in his professional interests to remove himself from the situation before it escalated out of control. Speechless, he turned on his heel and strode out of the room, slamming the door in a mixture of bewilderment and dumbstruck fury.

"It's ironic, really," drawled Lindsey lazily from behind the wooden door of her office. "To think: you're so fucking adamant that you don't need Peyton any more in your personal life, yet she's the one person you need alongside to keep your book deal from crashing and burning before it's even got off the ground. You better get your shit together, Luke. Because if you don't, pretty soon you won't have darling Peyton or your precious book." She ended bitingly, sarcastically: "And wouldn't that be a goddamned tragedy."

Lucas couldn't take it. He burst back into the room, now no longer thinking clearly, now with only adrenaline and rage pumping decisively through his veins and one objective – retaliation – on his mind.

"You orchestrated this, didn't you?"

He leveled the accusation directly at Lindsey, who, he noticed with an inward grimace of satisfaction, finally looked taken aback, somewhat lost for words. The sparkle in her eyes was gone. She was clearly expecting to get the last word.

"You did this," he continued, breathing heavily. "_You_ set my book up for failure. Not me. Not Peyton. _You_. You've been doing a terrible job for months. You've done absolutely nothing since June, as far as I can see. You've virtually given up on promoting my book. You spend more time in the hair salon than in the office. You disagree with everything I say for no conceivable reason. I see you so rarely now you could barely pass for my editor. You're nothing but a burden to this book's success. If this book's failing, then it's your fault. It's on you."

The atmosphere in the room was reeling; electric. Lindsey, for once, was speechless, and Lucas was unable to stop. "And I bet when the execs at Putnam & Pratt came to you asking why my book was doing so badly, why it wasn't living up to the hype, you were desperate for a scapegoat. Someone to take the blame for the disaster _you_ caused. And that's where Peyton Sawyer comes in. Peyton, who never wanted to be a part of this. Who has never asked anything from you or I, despite us both personally screwing up her life so monumentally. Who in a moment of sheer desperation lashed out at a bunch of intrusive reporters probably commissioned by _you_ to be there. And you had the nerve, the sheer fucking arrogance, to blame the one innocent person left in this whole catastrophe. And I think I've figured out why."

Lindsey raised her eyebrows and didn't say a word. Lucas steeled himself. What he had to say needed to be said. But it was still difficult. It came out in a whisper, in a dangerous, low undertone.

"That night in my apartment," he muttered, and this, finally, seemed to elicit a reaction out of Lindsey, who exclaimed in scorn and looked away in evident disgust. "What was a one-night-stand for me was clearly something totally different for you. I didn't feel the same way and _you couldn't fucking handle it._ You couldn't _bear_ to think that someone had the audacity to say no to you. That I didn't want to join your long line of admirers, that I actually argued with you about my book instead of blindly following your every wish and desire. You weren't used to the rejection, were you? _Lindsey Strauss always gets what she wants, _remember_? _You've held a grudge against me since the morning I told you I didn't want a relationship. Ever since I bruised your inflated ego. I've endured personal attacks and offhand insults constantly from the one person I trusted with everything. And then you ask me to get Peyton onside, all because you're jealous of what she and I had together. Jealous that I care more about her than you and you wanted a convenient way to fuck up her life as well. Well, I'm not going to take it. I can't do this anymore, Lindsey. Whatever this is, I want out. I don't want to be involved with you anymore, professionally or otherwise. _I want out_."

Lindsey stood up slowly. Her face was impassive, but her eyes were glimmering with fury. She looked powerful; fearsome; intimidating. And at that moment Lucas realised precisely _why_ Lindsey Strauss had always gotten everything she wanted. She had this magnetism about her; some fierce aura which inevitably had everyone she met cowering to her beck and call. And at the moment, all of it was directed towards Lucas.

"Get out," she spat. "Get out before I call security and have you thrown out. You're going to regret that." And Lucas didn't have to be asked twice. But on his way out, a bizarre confession occurred to him, and had no possible clue why he chose to admit it to Lindsey of all people, and why then and there. But he did, and something changed within him. Some kind of savage relief washed over him as soon as he spoke.

"I'm fucking in love with her, alright? I'm still in love with Peyton Sawyer," he murmured. And as he strode quickly out of the room, he could have sworn he heard a weary editor's voice snap back into its usual sarcastic self: "No_ shit_."

As he found himself facing the blank, unfriendly lines of his once enthusiastic, kind editor's door, he found himself once more thinking of Peyton. She was the _only_ thing he thought about. _Where is she now?_ he thought. _And how did we go from being the loving characters in the book to this? Or _– and the thought hit him heavily – _maybe we never were those people at all. Maybe I was deluded. Maybe true love like we had in the book is unattainable, elusive, and I made it all up for the hook; placated the audience with something romanticised and unrealistic. And Peyton realised it, and got out quickly, and now that false plotline is all I have left._

Everything around him was falling apart. He felt dizzy, as though someone – Lindsey – had just viciously pulled away everything that he thought was true for the past year. All the success, all the accolades. All a lie. He thought this book would be his one glowing chance at success. And for just a moment – one glorious, fleeting moment – it was. But it was never going to be enough without Peyton. And the success was hollow, and all the praise was artificial and short-lived, and his book was a catastrophe, one awful, debilitating mistake, and it had commoditised his friends, and isolated him from his family, and singlehandedly obliterated his relationship with the most important person in his world.

_Who do you want standing next to you when all your dreams come true_? he thought bitterly, as the spiteful, childish narrator in his head sneered forth a more apt question: _and who do you have left when they don't?_


	4. Tell Me 'Bout The Days When You Were 17

_Hi there! I don't know if anybody is still reading this, or if any of the original reviewers are still here, but here is the next chapter and first 'flashback' chapter. Originally the flashback was going to be contained in one chapter but it's currently 15,000 words and counting, so I thought I should split it up. But I've written most of it so the next chapter will be up soon!_

_I am so sorry for the delay of almost a YEAR! To be honest, I published the previous chapter the day before I left home for a yearlong university exchange on the other side of the world. I'm publishing this chapter the day before I leave my host university and come home. Although I haven't published anything for so long, I'm still constantly writing, planning and thinking about this story. I have some big ideas and I intend to finish it. _

_Here it is. After the news story introduction, the rest of the chapter is circa season 4, after the attack by Derek, basically just before they are all graduating. The Peyton/Brooke relationship is not as strong in this story as it was portrayed in late season 4 in the show, but the Lucas/Peyton relationship is a little stronger, and also probably a little less PG :) I know the story so far is written in past tense, but for some reason I started writing in present tense for the flashback scenes and I decided to keep it._

_Chapter title comes from song lyrics by Lisa Mitchell._

_Happy reading, I truly apologise for the delay, and please review - your reviews keep me inspired to write!_

* * *

BREAKING NEWS – Lucas Scott's much-hyped national book tour has been abruptly cancelled only weeks before it was scheduled to begin.

Amidst mounting speculation of a growing dispute between Scott, the author of surprise bestseller hit _An Unkindness of Ravens_, and its publisher Putnam & Pratt, the shock announcement was made by Scott himself earlier today.

"After deep thought and personal reflection, as well as substantial consultation with my publishing team, I have decided to part ways with Putnam & Pratt," he said this morning.

"Due to circumstances beyond my control, I felt my creative direction over my intellectual property was being critically jeopardised and for that reason I have decided to permanently end my involvement with the company."

Scott said his national book tour, which was to begin in September, has been called off, and sales of the book are to be gradually wound up.

And the press conference, like the book itself, wasn't free of controversy: Scott's remarks sent a direct message to his publishing team, and after weeks of silence, finally gave his readers a revealing insight into the reasons for his book's collapse.

"I would like to thank Putnam & Pratt and in particular my editor Lindsey Strauss for their exemplary job in editing my book and for showing me there are more important things in life than success and celebrity," he said.

"My sincerest apologies go out to all of my fans and I am deeply sorry for any inconvenience caused. But as an author I take immense pride in the integrity of my creative work and I saw no other way to continue."

In the past months, Scott has been bombarded with criticism in the media over what many termed 'inconsistencies' between the claimed non-fiction nature of the work and various contradictory actions by its main character, blonde seductress Peyton Sawyer, who has doggedly refused to participate in the book's growing popularity.

Scott today addressed these issues, urging "if you are a fan of my work, I implore you to judge my book on its merit and not by what you are told to think by the media."

"This past year has been both emotionally and professionally draining for me," he said. "In the coming weeks, I plan to move back to North Carolina and have some time to catch up with my friends, my reading and all the other things I've neglected to do for the last year."

"Unfortunately I cannot tell you if I'll ever write again and I have no plans at this stage to re-release my book through a different publisher."

The press conference today is the culmination of two months of media savagery which has seen Scott's credibility trashed and his creative integrity dragged through the mud. While the announcement in its honesty is certainly admirable, it's also a devastating blow to Scott, as a fledgling author on the make-or-break edge of a writing career.

"I _don't_ want to talk about it," was Lindsey Strauss' only comment when approached outside her Manhattan-based publishing house.

"She was chain-smoking, didn't take her hands off her Blackberry, and she seemed kinda agitated," said one reporter.

Strauss was absent from Scott's side at today's press conference; and rumours have begun to circulate that the prestigious publishing company may regret in hindsight appointing her – as an inexperienced, junior editor – solely responsible for such a large-scale book deal.

"Lindsey really screwed up on this one," says a publishing insider. "You never have a bigger ego than the author. Never. That's like, Publishing 101. I can't go into the details, but the Scott deal was huge, and she fucked it up completely. If her father wasn't such a bigshot in the company she'd be out on her ass."

Scroll down for an in-depth breakdown into the heated controversy leading up to today's press conference, and post your reaction to the shock announcement – and your predictions for what Scott will do next – below this story. But you've got to ask – and it's a question Scott must be asking himself today – where will he go from here? And how on earth did he get here in the first place?

* * *

**Four Years Earlier**

"Because you're in it."

As he admits it, he looks for her reaction on her lips. Not because her mouth is unusually responsive or expressive; no, just because he's always looking at her lips. And he only has a moment – one single, heavenly moment – to ponder how those lips somehow manage to look even more perfect when her mouth is dangling open like that in momentary surprise, before her mouth claps shut and she looks at him blazingly in steely determination. He tears his eyes away from those flushed lips to her radiant green eyes, which – if it's possible – have an even more heightened effect on his senses. He wonders whether her eyes somehow grow greener when she's angry, because right now they are dark emerald and narrowed and just _furiously_ beautiful, and he truly can't suppress a smile.

"Give me that book right now," she demands, as though she thinks her pouty, bossy attitude is going to win him over. It certainly doesn't convince him, but _God_ _does she look sexy with her lips like that._

"No way." He replies bluntly as if to be stern, but as he looks into her eyes, his voice soon lifts with an inflection and a reluctant laugh. A _giggle_, even. Try as he might, he could never, ever, fully say no to her. It's embarrassing, really, how devoted he is.

"Pleeeease!" The word is elongated, and her voice is pleading, and as she wiggles her shoulders forward cutely it's clear she knows just how much power she has over him. How little it takes to get him onside. A bat of her long eyelashes. An inch closer into his legs straddled out on the bed. And as he catches a whiff of her peachy scent – is it shampoo, or fabric softener, or just individually _her?_ – he knows he is lost.

His eyes flit again to her lips and it's clear he's just realised that it's _her_ and _him _and _together on his bed_. How her wily tactics have put him in the best position he could have hoped for. Maybe this is one argument he would be better off losing.

"It's not ready," he whines, but his voice is so husky now that it's a clear concession. A signal that he is more than happy to be persuaded otherwise. His eyes focus on her lips now, and it is nothing more than pride that keeps him from leaning in and pressing his mouth to hers. But his resolve is breaking fast, because she just _looks so damn cute on his bed_, and her grin tells him that she knows it, too. The next sentence she speaks is no longer a plea but a shameless mockery. She knows she has won, but she teases him for how supremely _easy_ it was to convince him.

"Pretty please…_with me on top_?"

His mind goes fuzzy as soon as she says those words. Any further attempts at opposition evaporate in a flash. Because those words will get her _anything she wants_. And he can't quite manage to stifle his groan as she rests her hands at his hairline at the base of his neck.

"Well," he says, lust darkening his eyes now, "I can be persuaded." And he allows himself to be pulled closer.

Only as her lips move against his own, and as her hands press insistently against his shoulders, and as a bare toe trails slowly up his calf, and her lips trail across his cheek to whisper a slow, halted _Luke, I love you, _into his ear, only then does it strike him that he has never felt this way before. Not with Brooke, who kissed him with tongue and was loud, squealing with pleasure, and who giggled breathily, and said _Oh, Luke, _and did all the things she _thought_ she was supposed to do, but without spontaneity, without any genuine passion, without love. Not with Nicki, who, by their mutual unspoken agreement was there, like him, only for sex; who leaned over him on the carousel, and kissed him with a malicious smile, and who vanished in the café after it was all over, leaving him feeling strangely hollow. Not like Anna, whom when he kissed made him ache not for her but for someone else.

But oh, Peyton. When he kissed her for the first time the year before in the motel room, he didn't recognise it. Didn't realise how rare it was to feel like that, to have someone who was so attuned, so in sync with him. He threw it away too quickly the last time, he thinks. Far too carelessly. And it is then, only then, with her legs hooked around his, and her infectious giggle reverberating around his room, that he knows – that he vows – he will never lose her again. This is so _right_, and so _true_, and it only took two years of mistakes and pain and heartbreak to discover it.

* * *

His delay in telling her about the book is not because he thinks she might disapprove of it, or be uncomfortable that she's in it. No, that hasn't even crossed his mind. His hesitation is only – exclusively, completely – because he is in love with her.

It was so easy to show Glenda the manuscript. The morning before he showed her, he hadn't even known her last name. He could have torn pages out, stood on the top of his mom's cafe, and flung them over the edge of the roof, to dance in the wind like butterflies and to be caught out of the air and read by strangers passing by. How easy, how painless, that would have been. He probably could have even shown Haley or Brooke without too much unease. They would have congratulated him, and taken him seriously, and recalled their conversations or offered suggestions. Sure, Nathan or Skills would have given him some grief to begin with, each of them being completely incapable of (and therefore supremely disinterested in) writing a novel, but they, too, would have understood. The words 'Lucas Scott' and 'author' make perfect, inescapable sense.

But Peyton. When they were sixteen he had asked her why she was a cheerleader. Why this girl – this introverted, vengeful, bundle of insults inside a head of curls – would go out every Friday and scream and shout and holler with a big happy smile plastered on her face. She was a beautiful, walking contradiction.

And ever since then she had surprised him. Ever since then, he had never been able to predict what her reaction would be. Their friends said that Lucas and Peyton were so similar it was striking. And maybe they were, on the outside. Tortured artist, tortured athlete, he understood the connection. But if he went past the superficial similarities, Lucas really couldn't think of any two people less alike than he and Peyton.

And that was exactly why he loved her. Why the only thing he ever wanted to do was gaze into her eyes and wonder and marvel at whatever she would say next. But it was scary, how much he cared. His book was part of himself now; it was a piece of his heart, a fragment of his soul. But he could say exactly the same of Peyton. She was his one book critic, his only real editor, the only person whose opinion really mattered to him, because he cared about it so much. And if she didn't like the book – if she laughed, if she didn't take it seriously, or she rejected it – her response would sting more bitterly than he could cope with.

Sometimes, when they were sitting in the quad at recess, laughing over something he could now no longer recall while the sun glinted in her hair, or when he watched her as she daydreamed in class, as she looked out the window and bit on the end of her pencil, he had this sudden urge to write it all down, to grab a pen and paper in that minute and preserve that exact memory before it faded away. She was so captivating, so beautiful. It was simple in that way. He loved her.

* * *

"Where is it?" squealed Brooke Davis, as she hurled herself onto Peyton's double bed with the vivacity of a child.

"Where's what?" Peyton Sawyer returned the question snappishly, although she didn't completely mean to, dumping her heavy bag on the floor with relish. It was exam season and she was an overworked senior, with a best friend who permanently lived about ten enthusiasm levels above her.

"The book, silly!" cried her friend. "Lucas' _book_!" And as though those two mere words couldn't be uttered without some sort of commemorating celebration, Brooke grabbed Peyton's cheerleader pompoms off the edge of her bed, flicked the bedside radio to _on_, jumped up on the mattress, and began to dance wildly, goofily, in a hysterical zigzag of movement. The heavy piano riff of Ben Folds Five emanated from the radio.

Peyton turned away and surreptitiously rolled her eyes. Brooke had accompanied Peyton home from school largely uninvited, skipping up to her in the quad, offering to carry her bag, and then, much to Peyton's bemusement, almost interrogating her with a nonstop chatter of best-friend-type questions, about her dad and Lucas and her post-high-school plans, as though their friendship was still the same as it always had been, even though they hadn't otherwise had a proper conversation in weeks.

"How did you find out about the book, anyway?" Peyton asked, her eyes narrowed in a curiosity that was really only half-interested. She was sure Brooke's explanation would be suitably simple and straightforward, yet narrated using Brooke's skilful talent of spinning a largely uncomplicated story into a complex, melodramatic one; and in all honesty, today Peyton just didn't have the time or energy. Hoping it would give a subtle, but not unfriendly, hint, Peyton opened her Math textbook, the most urgent of the pile of homework she had to, and flicked to the right page. She cleared her throat. "Did Glenda tell you, or something?" she asked unconcernedly, looking up with a reluctant half-amused grin at Brooke, who was busy turning up the music, her hips swishing to the beat, totally oblivious to any homework obligations she may have had. Peyton raised her voice and persevered. "You're in the same computer science class, right?" That must be it, she thinks. As far as she knew, Lucas had only told Glenda, during that class where they were all paired off. It was nice, she thought, that Luke had told Glenda without being forced to. _Something personal._ He took things seriously sometimes, Luke did. He was brave. "Or did Mouth tell you?" she hypothesised. Peyton vaguely remembered Mouth and Glenda being friends. Something to do with the photography club. Maybe Glenda told Mouth, then Mouth let slip to Brooke.

Peyton stretched her arms out above her head and yawned, watching Brooke, still wildly jumping on the bed, putting on a show for her best friend. "Because, well, I thought it was some big secret," she giggled. Brooke laughed back with her, her nose wrinkling. Sometimes, Peyton thought, Brooke looked so young, so carefree. So refreshingly uncomplicated. It was a prime example of why the duo worked so well as friends, Brooke had once told her. Peyton brought the drama, and the anguish, (which certainly made their lives more eventful, at least), but Brooke always brought her down a notch or two. Always reminded Peyton that at 17, they were meant to be having _fun._

Brooke replies airily, still giggling. "No, Luke told me."

The answer shocks Peyton out of her reverie. "Excuse me?" For she hears what she says, but is immediately certain she must have misheard. "Brooke, can you turn the music down, please? I can't understand you." For it is true that the music is the loudest it has been, and Brooke pouts for a moment before she acquiesces and flicks the radio off.

"Oh, come on, Peyton. You listen to your weird whiny music at least ten times as loud as that."

"Not in the middle of a conversation!" Peyton shoots her back a wry grin, loving Brooke for their mutual banter. "So, grouchy. Where did you hear about the book?"

"Lucas told me, of course," Brooke repeats matter-of-factly, as if she and her ex-boyfriend chat regularly, stressing the syllables so that this time Peyton cannot be under any other illusion of what she says.

For a moment Peyton wishes she hadn't asked Brooke to turn the music off, because the silence is suddenly deafening. Peyton doesn't know if she's doing it deliberately, but Brooke is, rather uncharacteristically, speaking only in short, monosyllabic sentences, as if enjoying Peyton's stunned, jealous attention.

"What?" Peyton is taken aback. She had been spending almost every night with Luke, either at her place or his. Lucas had confessed to her about the book only yesterday afternoon, and she had left his house late last night after dinner. She had barely seen Lucas today at school – his Geography class had a field trip, and she had briefly waved goodbye to him as he stepped onto the bus that morning with Nathan and Haley, and he had blown her a kiss from the window. She had only spoken to Brooke once, during a free period, and their conversation had been a normal one, about Brooke's plans for her clothing line, and her blossoming romance with Chase. There was no mention of Lucas' book. As far as she was aware Brooke hadn't seen Lucas at all that day either. So when did Lucas have time to pour his heart out to Brooke?

Brooke answers the unspoken question: "Yesterday morning, before school."

Peyton gapes. "_Yesterday_ morning?"she whispers, morning even she, Peyton, didn't know about the book. As far as she knew, Lucas and Brooke didn't speak any more than was strictly necessary. And yet Lucas told Brooke about his book before he told Peyton, his girlfriend.

Even without music, Brooke begins to continue jumping, leaving Peyton to contemplate what she has just discovered, jarred occasionally by large thumps as the mattress shakes in time with Brooke's movements. Brooke continues to jump, almost purposefully carefree, knowing her best friend is watching her, staring at her nonplussed.

"Oh, I always imagined Luke as a famous author," Brooke says, in between jumps, apparently not noticing – or pretending not to notice – Peyton's bewilderment. "He can sell a hundred million and retire at twenty-one. And I'll be a famous designer, of course, and throw the most exclusive parties, where I'll look fabulous every night and invite only the people I want. Meanwhile, Nathan and Haley will be a power couple, he the centre forward for the Bobcats and she with a hit single on the charts every other week. And people will flock to Tree Hill, darling, not only to see the setting of Scott's famous tale of heartbreak, deception and redemption, but also to view the place where the three most famous, most successful teenagers in the _entire world_ – grew up." She finishes her faux-movie trailer with a flourish, her arms held tantalisingly aloft, her curvy frame silhouetted in the afternoon sun: a saleswoman for the most ludicrous, most unbelievable ideas out there, with her expression twinkling, her eyes sparkling and uniquely Brooke-ish, her salacious grin just begging Peyton to laugh.

But Peyton cannot laugh. She has been seething throughout Brooke's entire monologue. Brooke's apparent obliviousness to her bewilderment – along with the fact that Peyton is seemingly invisible in Brooke's little future life prediction – only incenses her further.

"Would you _mind_ telling me, if it's not too much _trouble_," she begins, grinding her teeth, "how it is that Lucas told you about a book in which I feature prominently, before he told me, the subject of the damn thing?"

Brooke sighs. "We thought you'd take it like this," she croons, emphasising the _'we'_.

"_We?_ Brooke, do I need to remind you that when it comes to you and Lucas, there is no 'we'?"

"Peyton," Brooke begins, her lips curling, her gaze steady, and Peyton is reminded of how cutting Brooke can be when she wants to, "I'm in the book too, remember. I have just as much right as you do to read it."

"Not when I'm his girlfriend, Brooke! He should have told me first!" Peyton's voice is dangerously close to a yell, her eyes ablaze.

"And you're blaming me for that?"

Peyton sighs. She is almost out of breath. Brooke takes the chance to plough on.

"It sounds like you two have some serious communication issues, and that's nothing to do with me," she says swiftly, holding her hands up.

Peyton scoffs, outraged. But her anger at Brooke is ebbing away, replaced by a furious, burning desire to see Lucas. To shout at him, to shake him, to demand why he confided in _Brooke_, of all damn people, before he came to her.

"Look, Brooke," she says wearily, and the tiredness that has been ebbing away at her temples for the past hour looms strong again, "I'm not angry at you, okay. Just would you mind leaving now? I really need to call Lucas and talk to him about this."

"Perfect! Me too! We can do it together!" Brooke replies, resuming her jumping on the bed. "I have a business proposition I want to discuss with him." She doesn't seem to appreciate – or care – that Peyton might like just a morsel of time alone with her boyfriend in the wake of this revelation.

"A – what? A business proposition?" Peyton gasps, taken aback for the second time this afternoon. "For _what?_"

"His book," Brooke says seriously. "It's almost finished, and I've figured out a great way we can promote and market it around school and Tree Hill. Get some publishers interested, you know."

"_Promote it?_ Brooke – Brooke!" For the absentminded brunette isn't listening, but instead nodding busily to herself and rummaging through her school bag, intent on finding her cellphone, seemingly to contact Lucas. "Brooke," Peyton resumes, incredulous, once she has regained her friend's attention, "it's a few pages written by an amateur about his girlfriend, and you only discovered it existed _yesterday_. This is crazy talk. Do you understand that? It's a love letter more than it'll ever be a novel. Don't go – just don't go and give Luke false hope, okay? That would be too much for him to bear." And she is genuinely worried for her boyfriend, her idealistic, aspiring, sincere Luke, because this is his dream, however skeptical about it she might be, because his eyes sparkle when he talks about it, and if Brooke mocks him for that, or makes that spark go away, she will have to answer to Peyton. When it comes to choosing between her best friend and her boyfriend, Peyton is absolutely sure of where her loyalties lie.

But Brooke isn't teasing; nor is she abashed. "Clearly you haven't read it properly, Peyton," she responds smoothly. "It's _not_ just a love letter. It has a plotline, and characters with a story to tell, and it's about his life. You know as well as I do how crazy Luke's life has been. How he, more than anybody else, deserves to have his story heard." She looks at Peyton accusatorily, as if she, unlike Peyton, has Lucas' best interests at heart; and Peyton is deliberately trying to bring Lucas down.

"Brooke –" Peyton shouts, exasperated, and, closer to throwing her best friend out than she ever has been before, actually takes the bound manuscript out of her school bag and throws it on the bed, gesturing at it wordlessly. Brooke pounces on it, opening it at random. "Even if Lucas' book is the best thing since _War and Peace, _aside from the _hundred _other problems I have with what you're saying, the biggest one, just off the top of my head, is that you don't know anything – _anything! _– about promoting a book, okay? You would be the _last_ potential publisher Lucas would ever choose!"

"I know more than some," Brooke replies sleekly, not missing a beat, looking supremely smug. And suddenly Peyton knows where all her confidence came from.

"Oh, because you won some fashion competition?" she shouts, emitting a peal of scornful laughter. Brooke pouts, finally disconcerted, then lifts her head up and addresses Peyton stoutly:

"The judge – he said I have an eye for business."

Peyton smiles a twisted grin. "Yeah, an eye for business, sure. More likely he was eyeing how your ass looked in your designs. _Don't_ give up the day job, Brooke. I wouldn't."

And Brooke fleetingly looks hurt, but soon rearranges her features stubbornly. She is not upset. Her lip only slightly trembles as she speaks, in a hissed, staccato whisper, where every word is emphasised and stressed. "Peyton, I am telling this to you straight. I am telling you this as your best friend, without jealousy, without past events, without our warped history. You have a boyfriend with a guaranteed bestseller on his hands. I am telling you that impartially. And you can fall in line or not." She breathes out. "I know it's scary. I know it's personal. I know you're worried that by Lucas telling the world about your love, somehow he'll lose the real you along the way." She fixes Peyton with a determined glare. "But there's a right way and a wrong way that this can play out, Peyton. You have a choice here. I know Lucas loves you. And you love him. But what you also know is how much this book means to him. You can see it in his eyes, in his smile. He's so determined to live his life well. To do something meaningful now that Keith's gone. More than anyone we know, Lucas is the one person who is going to go far. Who _has _to. History has _made_ it that way. So you need to support him here. Because otherwise, if you don't, and I hate to say it – " and she seemed like she does, too, for her eyes are wide and sincere, no longer scornful or condescending – "if you make him choose between you and this book, then I think – " she quickly corrected herself – "then I _know_, that you and Luke, the two people in this whole world who are _meant_ to be together, the most destined, most fated lovers since Romeo and Juliet_,_ will be forced apart through your own stubbornness and pride."

Brooke is clearly close to tears. She looks half defiant, half ashamed. She takes a great, shuddering breath, glances at Peyton with a burning, tortured glance, mutters "I'm sorry, P, but it had to be said," under her breath, then hastens out of the room, not before tripping over Peyton's bed as she leaves and in doing so, upsetting a stack of a dozen dusty records which cascade off the bed with a thump and clatter noisily on the floor.

"_Brooke_," Peyton hisses weakly at her retreating figure, picking them up and folding them into her arms with the reverence of one handling an infant, "These are _Pink Floyd_. Rare bootlegs. I had to sacrifice three weekends to cleaning out the garage to afford _one_ of these and I refuse to suffer through another weekend of my dad's lame jokes." It is a convenient way of shouting at her, of letting her anger out, though she is in no way concerned about the records.

But her friend is gone, leaving Peyton with an aching, gnawing feeling in the pit of her stomach. She places the records back onto the bed numbly. This wasn't right, was it? No, this was all wrong. She doesn't feel remotely angry at Brooke anymore, who, in fact, despite her earlier attitude, had just given what Peyton recognised as a heartfelt and completely non-threatening speech. Nor does she feel the burning need to immediately speak to Lucas, as she had felt only a few minutes earlier. In fact, as she sits there, on her bed, in her silent bedroom, which only seconds ago had been full of shouting and accusations and tears, there is only one thought running numbly through Peyton Sawyer's mind, and it was that Brooke could have hardly picked a more ominous example to illustrate Peyton and Lucas' love: Romeo and Juliet, the pair who represented the most star-crossed, the most doomed-to-fail love story in the history of literature.


End file.
